by Emmanuel Desplechin (ePURE, the European Renewable Ethanol Association/Ethanol Producer Magazine) … First, it opens the door to a more effective approach to decarbonizing EU transport, as long as member states find ways to turn that ambition into action. And second, it puts the EU on record as saying that sustainable biofuels such as European ethanol should remain an important part of any long-term scenario for decarbonization.

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The headlines keep coming about the importance of fighting climate change—and about Europe’s struggle to achieve emissions reductions from the transport sector.

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One obvious course of action would be to encourage the use of low-carbon liquid fuels like renewable European ethanol, which reduces GHG emissions by more than 70 percent on average compared to fossil fuels.

The newly approved Renewable Energy Directive (known as RED II) confirms the importance of sustainably produced crop-based biofuels such as European ethanol to achieving EU climate goals. However, it still caps the contribution these low-carbon fuels can make at each member state’s 2020 levels, with a +1 percent flexibility and up to 7 percent.

That means EU member states have between now and 2020 to increase their use of renewable ethanol in transport—for example, by adopting E10 as a standard petrol blend—if they want to maximize their ability to reach the post-2020 renewables and climate targets under both the RED II and the Effort Sharing Regulation.

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But even though most of the scenarios would require a massive increase in the use of biofuels, the strategy largely fails to acknowledge the important role sustainable crop-based and advanced biofuels could and should play in decarbonizing the EU. READ MORE